This one was a marathon eight hour session with a lot of exploration and some combat. Not all of the players were present for the entire session, two of them weren't at the game at the same time even, missing each other completely. I continued a policy of having everyone have three characters to play, one primary, one alternate/henchman, and one "on deck". Since I started all the PCs at 1st level, and didn't bother adjusting any of the random encounter lists or scaling any of the placed encounters, it seemed like a reasonable precaution. There were a few fatalities, and a couple of long-term injuries (broken bones from the "Death & Dismemberment" table. Cagey players are starting to abuse the "Shields Shall Be Splintered" rule, but I'll let it slide for now, as it is keeping fatalities low.
The players found some good loot this time, which was enough to push one of the Fighters up to level two. He had already become the de facto leader of the group, by virtue of having been a part of every expedition this crew has made into the city, and having lived to tell of it without suffering some debilitating injury.
They didn't run into any poison monsters this time, but they did run afoul of a pair of Watchers (limited Stone Golems), and one fatality occurred there. They managed to beat a Polar Bear, held a party on the beach for the other Norsemen, and recruited a witch/seeress away from another crew.
The hardest encounter of the night was a Wind Demon, and they did win that fight through shear luck and misplaced confidence. The "Death and Dismemberment" table was on their side in that fight, and my dice apparently wanted them to win, as I rolled a record number of 3s and 5s.
